The present invention relates to the field of sterile surgical drapes, and more particularly to sterile surgical drapes designed to protect portions of a robotic surgical system.
The use of robotic systems has become increasingly common in various surgical procedures, including prostate, cardiac, gynecological, and gastrointestinal surgeries. Among the major advantages of robotic surgery are precision, miniaturization, smaller incisions, decreased blood loss, less pain, and quicker healing time. Robotic systems enable enhanced articulation and three-dimensional magnification, resulting in improved ergonomics. Other benefits of robotic techniques include reduced duration of hospital stays, fewer transfusions and decreased use of pain medication.
In the case of robotically-assisted minimally-invasive surgery, instead of directly manipulating the instruments, the surgeon controls the instruments either through a direct tele-manipulator or through computer control. A tele-manipulator is a remote manipulator that allows the surgeon to perform the normal movements associated with the surgery while one or more robotic arms carry out those movements using manipulators to perform the actual surgery on the patient. In computer-controlled systems, the surgeon uses a remote computer to control the robotic arms and its manipulators.
One widely-used robotic surgical system is the da Vinci™ Surgical System, marketed by Intuitive Surgical Inc. This system comprises a surgeon's control console, a patient-side robotic cart, and a high-definition 3D vision system. The robotic cart is equipped with four arms manipulated by the surgeon—one camera arm to control the camera/endoscope and three manipulator arms to control surgical instruments. Articulating surgical instruments are mounted on the robotic manipulator arms and are introduced into the body through cannulas. The da Vinci™ system senses the surgeon's hand movements and translates them electronically into scaled-down micro-movements to manipulate the tiny surgical instruments. The system also detects and filters out any tremors in the surgeon's hand movements, so that they are not replicated robotically. The system's camera/endoscope transmits a true stereoscopic picture to the surgeon's console. The da Vinci™ System is FDA approved for a variety of surgical procedures, including surgery for prostatectomies, hysterectomies and mitral valve repairs, and it is used in numerous hospitals throughout the world.
During the preparation of a robotic surgical apparatus for an operative procedure, it is necessary to cover or drape the robotic arms to protect them from contamination by blood or other bodily fluids. Failure to do this properly results in a need to decontaminate and sterilize the robotic arms after the surgery, which is difficult due to the complex articulation of the apparatus. While sleeve-type fitted drapes are available for the robotic arms themselves, there currently exists no drape to cover the central tower from which the robotic arms extend. Consequently, it is often necessary to decontaminate this tower after the robotic surgery.
The principal problem associated with devising a cover for the tower of a robotic surgical system is interference with the mobility of the robot arms connected to the tower. In the da Vinci™ system, for example, the three manipulator arms extend from the sides of the central tower, while the camera/endoscope arm extends from the front of the tower. Therefore, a sleeve-type drape over the tower would interfere with all four arms, while even a simple sheet drape would impede the central camera arm. The prior art in the field of surgical draping affords no means of addressing this problem.
A number of patent documents teach various sleeve-type covers for protecting the surgical robotic arms themselves. Examples of these are the U.S. patent of Mohan et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,123,080), the U.S. patent application of Christian et al. (2003/0106493), and the international patent application of AT&T (WO85/01496). But a sleeve-type drape as applied to the central tower of a da Vinci™-type robotic would restrict the movement of the manipulator arms as well as the central camera arm.
While the U.S. patent of Cooper et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,886,743) describes a sterile drape that encloses the control mechanism of a surgical robotic arm, the robotic arm must extend around the periphery of the drape, so that there is no provision for the movement of a central arm through the drape. The sterile surgical drape described in the U.S. patent application of Orban III et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,727,244) includes dual enclosures which cover both a single peripheral robotic arm and the control mechanism. However, this design cannot accommodate multiple robotic arms and would constrain a central camera arm extending from the control mechanism.
The principal objective of the present invention is to provide a sterile surgical drape that covers and protects the central tower of a surgical robotic cart, such as the robotic cart of the da Vinci™ Surgical System, while leaving unconstrained all of the robotic arms extending from the central tower.